Labour lead in Westminster voting intention in the capital is even larger
YouGov’s latest London mayoral voting intention survey, conducted for Queen Mary University of London on 12-17 October, finds Labour’s Sadiq Khan a full 25 points ahead of Conservative challenger Susan Hall, by 50% to 25%.
The Green party’s Zoe Garbett currently takes 11% of the vote, while the Liberal Democrats’ Rob Blackie has 7% and Reform UK’s Howard Cox is on 4%, with 3% for other candidates.
Sadiq Khan is the preferred candidate in both inner London (by 62% to Hall’s 19%) and outer London (by 41% to 29%).
Khan gets the most votes among white Londoners (by 45% to 30%) and ethnic minority Londoners (by 57% to 18%). He is likewise the preferred choice for mayor among all gender and class groups, as well as age groups under 65.
Next year’s mayoral election will see the vote held under first past the post, rather than the supplementary voting system of previous years, which allowed voters to rank two candidates in order of preference. Under the previous system, if no candidate won more than 50% of the vote based on first preferences then all but the leading two candidates were eliminated, and the second preference votes redistributed among the two remaining candidates so that one candidate achieved an absolute majority.
The upshot of this change is that there is more incentive for tactical voting. Previously, voters who liked one of the smaller parties most could give a first preference for that party’s candidate, and then a second preference for the candidate of the major party that comes closer to their views than the opposing major party. Under first past the post, these voters must now choose between the candidate of their favourite small party and that of the most closely-aligned major party that has a realistic prospect of winning.
Breaking the results down by 2019 general election vote shows that Sadiq Khan is taking the votes of a handsome proportion of Liberal Democrat voters (53%). This is actually twice the number the Liberal Democrats’ own candidate Rob Blackie is currently on (26%), and four times the number for Susan Hall (13%).
Westminster voting intention in London
In terms of current Westminster voting intention, Labour lead the Conservatives in the capital by an even wider margin, at 55% to 20%. The Liberal Democrats and Greens receive 9% of the vote apiece, while Reform UK is on 2%.
Photo: Getty
